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Food and drink: A miracle of meringues

Whip up a little fluff of pleasure

You say merengue, I say meringue.

But really, I've just made my first meringue and I'm so thrilled I'm doing the merengue all around the kitchen.

Why so happy? I have to 'fess up that I've loved meringues since I was a kid. If half of food pleasure is texture, who can resist the squooshy mouth-feel a good meringue delivers, whether dry and crisp, like meringue cookies, or chewy and browned, or the heavenly meringues in Iles flottante, the classic French dessert with its "floating islands" of moist airy meringues that have been poached in milk.

But until now I've never been brave enough to try a meringue. Horror of kitchen horrors - they seemed as daunting as making the toast to the bride at a traditional wedding. They collapse, they weep. Accidentally touch the bowl just once with your baby finger and your egg whites will never whip up no matter how mercilessly you beat them. Forget it.

A failed meringue is as embarrassing as a failed politician.

The tipping point for me was helping my mom make her usual lemon meringue pie-to-die-for, the traditional Easter dinner dessert in our family. In fact, the recipe we used in the meringue teaching demo is the same one my nan used in her farm kitchens across central Alberta and passed on.

Younger generations, head's up: if you want to shake things up a bit by slowing things down, take out your ear buds and spend an afternoon making one of your favourite recipes with your mom or dad or whoever is the best cook in your life.

If food is one of the most sacred repositories of memory, and it is, along with scent, which also plays such a big part of taste, you will be so glad you did. Never mind the evocation of memories as you take the first bite. Whether it's now or years from now, as you roll out the dough or beat the eggs, you realize your arms and wrists feel like your grandma's or dad's did as they made the same pastry, whipped the same custard.

And so you become them in that moment, or at least feel you do, knowing something you can't possibly know, but knowing you do regardless. A living kitchen doppelgänger of those who've gone before you.

While the merengue is the national dance of the Dominican Republic, meringue is likely from the Latin "merenda" meaning light evening meal.

It is true you shouldn't touch your greasy fingers or even your ordinary clean fingers on the bowl or utensils, nor, for that matter, should you use plastic, as they all can result in oils spoiling the formation of the air pockets.

Wise cooks say older eggs at room temperature work best.

If you're ambitious, tackle the full on lemon meringue pie that my mom and I did, below. Alternatively, you can bake up a plate of meringue alone and enjoy it as a light evening meal. You could do much worse.

 

Nan's lemon meringue pie

 

Lemon filling:

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1 scant cup of sugar (1 c. less about 2 tbsp.)

Pinch of salt

1 ½ c. boiling water (you can use hot tap water, although that will horrify some cooks)

3 egg yolks

6 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 tsp. grated lemon rind

1 tbsp. butter

 

Mix cornstarch, sugar and salt. Add water. Cook and stir in double boiler 15 minutes until the mixture is clear and thick. (Okay, so you know how old this recipe is - most people don't even own a double boiler any more so you can ad lib one by using a good heavy bottomed-pot on low-medium heat. Or you can be really modern, as my mom is, and microwave the mixture on high for 2 minutes, then check it at 1- or 2-minute intervals.)

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick and add the lemon juice and rind. Add to hot mixture and cook about 3 minutes more in the double boiler or, if you are using a microwave, 1 minute on high, then at 1-minute intervals, stirring it and watching it carefully until small bubbles form on the edges. Remove from heat; add butter. Let it cool on the countertop while you are making the meringue. Then pour it into a baked pastry shell and top with meringue.

Pastry shell tip:

Traditionally, people used what's called short pastry or short crust pastry, sometimes made with eggs, for lemon meringue pies, but any pastry will do. My grandma used the recipe on the Tenderflake lard box, but you can do with a frozen pastry shell. My aunt swears by the Tenderflake brand. She says not even her kids notice the difference.

If you make your own crust, bake it 12-15 minutes at 425º. The trick about baking an empty pie shell with no filling is to keep it from collapsing or wrinkling as it bakes. Gourmet shops sell ceramic beads you can place in the bottom, but they've never worked for me. The best advice is to not stretch your pastry too much, make sure you prick the pastry all over - sides too - with a fork, and then press the fluted edge hard onto the pie plate. A cook I worked with taught me to lay a piece of clean metal cutlery into the bottom that almost fits the diameter. And if the pastry wrinkles as it bakes, who cares? It's a work of pie art.

 

Meringue:

3 egg whites

3 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. cornstarch

 

Whip the egg whites in a glass or metal bowl. A hand egg beater will make you feel like my nan and make you realize how fit and healthy housewives stayed through all the manual labour they did, but an electric one will be faster. When soft peaks form, add the sugar and cornstarch and keep whipping a bit longer until the mixture is glossy and as light or stiff as you like your meringue. Spread the meringue over the lemon custard right to the pastry edge. Make sure it touches or the meringue will shrink as it bakes. Swirl up some interesting curls and peaks as you like and bake it at 350º about 15 minutes, until the top is lightly and evenly browned. Check your pie after about 10 minutes. If it's getting too brown, turn the heat down to 325º.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who ate half the pie.